David 3:16

digresssmlOriginally published May 3, 2002, in Comics Buyer’s Guide #1485

Well, my “open letter” from a few weeks back certainly started off a firestorm of publicity, wounded rage and back-and-forth. I’m sure you know the one to which I’m referring.

I have sworn to myself that I will not be using this column to perpetuate the particulars… to respond to Joe Quesada or Bill Jemas, express my feelings about this whole Survivor-style challenge, etc. Why? A whole lot of reasons, but the most fundamental one being that I figure if I do, it’s going to get very old for you guys very quickly. But I Digress has always been predictable in its unpredictability, and I don’t want you guys thinking this column is where you turn to see the latest entry in the Marvel back-and-forth.

However, one extremely bizarre wrinkle has arisen from all this which I am going to mention, for three reasons: 1) It’s a side issue, 2) it’s something that was generated by fans as opposed to either myself or Marvel personnel, and 3) because it’s going to benefit the Comic Book Legal Defense Fund (an organization which, I must emphasize, has no opinion whatsoever on the current brouhaha. The CBLDF is an organization designed to support the First Amendment rights of people in the comic industry, not get involved in public disagreements between freelancers and management.)

It’s fascinated me how a stand I took in order to help save a comic book and the fans some money has evolved (or, more properly, mutated) into a multiple-bandwith analysis of my writing ability. Opinions seem to be held by more people than actually read my work. Some of the comments are valid. Some are sheer idiocy. I’m not going to get into a point-by-point response simply because that’s a tar-baby from which this column (and quite possibly the inevitable rebuttal letters in “Oh So”) would never escape.

But one of the places where this entire thing has been a hot topic of conversation has been Newsarama. And in the multi-page responses that all of this has generated, it was observed that the situation is rapidly becoming evocative of the WWF.

Now I had the exact same response that I’m sure you have: What in the world does comic books have to do with the one of the world’s largest and most effective independent organizations dedicated to the conservation of nature, with over five million members?

Well, it turns out there’s another WWF, and it pertains to wrestling, which it seems is quite popular among some quarters. I wouldn’t know anything about it, you see, because apparently the world of WWF wrestling involves confusing continuity, an assortment of characters you have to be familiar with, and is really quite inaccessible to people who haven’t been keeping up with it. Kind of like Buffy the Vampire Slayer, X-Files, Farscape, and Alias, all failed TV series which never managed to amass a following.

So anyway, the fan commentators claimed that Bill Jemas was similar to Vince McMahon, and I was akin to Steve Austin. Now I had no idea who the former gentlemen was, but Steve Austin, I knew. And I thought, How in the world am I at all comparable to the Six Million Dollar Man, portrayed by Lee Majors in the 1970s TV series of the same name, which in turn was based on the Martin Caidin novel The Cyborg? I mean, okay, yeah, I have this tendency to run in slow motion, but other than that…?

Well, it turns out there’s a new guy with the same name, except his name is preceded by the compound adjective, “Stone Cold.” Which makes sense, I guess, since “Stone Cold” Steve Austin is certainly more dramatic than “Not the Six Million Dollar Man” Steve Austin or “The Unbionic” Steve Austin or even simply “The Other” Steve Austin. (As opposed to poor Richard Hatch from Battlestar Galactica who has been Richard Hatch for years and years, but now has been demoted to “The Other” Richard Hatch thanks to that yutz from Survivor. But I digress…)

At any rate, Kathleen explained it to me because Kathleen knows everything. It appears that Vince McMahon owns the WWF (the one that’s not the conservation organization with the panda mascot) and he has been trying to get rid of “Stone Cold” Steve Austin for quite some time. I figured maybe it was because other people were also confusing him with the Six Million Dollar Man, and it was hurting business because they’d show up to see Lee Majors wrestle and it’d be this chap instead. I asked Kathleen why, if McMahon is the boss, he doesn’t just fire the guy. She said that wouldn’t be dramatic. I said “Oh, I get it,” which is what I always say when I don’t understand something.

Anyway, back to the Newsarama board. A poster calling himself “Wishlish,” which is not me making a typo for “Wishlist,” said that someone should produce T-shirts that said, “David 3:16.”

This confused me further. Why should a little past a quarter after three have significance to me? Back I went to Kathleen, who explained that first there was “John 3:16” which means, “For God so loved the world, that he gave his only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in him should not perish, but have everlasting life,” and in response there is apparently “Austin 3:16” which according to the Stonecold website means, “I just whooped your ášš.” Considering “whooped” means “To make a loud or boisterous noise,” I was completely lost. Although, frankly, if some wrestler is standing in the middle of a ring and making whooping noises on some other wrestler’s buttocks, I can certainly comprehend why the boss wants him gone.

However, this was all seemingly comprehensible to Nat Gertler, a fan-turned pro-turned “Ben Stein” contestant whom I have known for many years. Barely had the cyber-ink dried on Wishlish’s comment before Nat had utilized something else I’d never heard of—Café Press—to create a website called www.cafepress.com/david316. It’s got t-shirts, sweatshirts, mugs, caps… even boxer shorts, all of which features the David 3:16 logo on the front, and on the back Nat put the following: “For Peter so loved the book, that he gave his only begotten Page Rate, that whosever buyeth of it should not pay an extra quarter, but have an everlasting bargain.” Which, frankly, I far prefer to the whole “whooping” on some man’s backside notion. Not that there’s anything wrong with that, if that’s what you’re into. But it’s not for me.

The reason all this is pertinent and getting a plug in the column is because Nat is donating his entire share of this lunacy to the Comic Book Legal Defense Fund. So if you want to get involved in this craziness in a way that supports the CBLDF and doesn’t benefit Marvel one iota, this is the way to do it. I know I’m getting a bunch of the shirts and will be sporting them at all the conventions I go to this summer.

Just imagine Jemas’ face at conventions if people are wearing those things. Maybe he’ll make whooping noises.

(Peter David, writer of stuff, can be written to at Second Age, Inc., P.O. Box 239, Bayport, NY 11705.)

 

One comment on “David 3:16”

  1. I remembered just about everything involving the U-Choose event (oops, is that considered a spoiler?) EXCEPT for the t-shirts! I always regretted not purchasing one of those, but for the fact that I don’t think I look all that great in a t-shirt in and of itself. Thanks as always for a memory I’m not entirely sure I needed to have restored.

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